By Aggrey Baba
The People’s Freedom Front (PFF) has demanded an emergency government response to Uganda’s prolonged drought, warning that crop failure, livestock deaths and worsening hunger are pushing thousands of families into a serious food crisis.
PFF acting chairman Dr Michael Lulume Bayiga said on Monday that the drought, which he said has persisted for more than six months, has affected farmers across the country, with particularly severe conditions reported in Karamoja, Buganda, West Nile and parts of Ankole.
Lulume said the situation in Karamoja is especially worrying, claiming that more than 673,000 people across the region’s nine districts are facing severe food insecurity, adding that the effects are also being felt in Buganda, where coffee and banana plantations have reportedly dried up, while farmers in West Nile and Isingiro are similarly struggling after crops failed.
The former Buikwe South MP argued that the scale of the crisis requires government to move beyond routine programmes and immediately create an emergency intervention to restore food production.
He proposed a supplementary budget for the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries, saying the money should be raised by reducing expenditure on defence, State House and the Office of the President and redirecting it towards emergency agricultural support.
Lulume also called for the urgent procurement and distribution of fast-growing food crop varieties, but warned against leaving the exercise entirely in the hands of government officials, particularly the office of the Prime Minister, whose officials, Lulume referred to as “vampires.”
He argued that farmers and local leaders should participate in deciding how the emergency supplies are distributed to prevent the possible abuse of the programme.
His call comes as Uganda’s food and nutrition situation remains under pressure. The latest IPC analysis attributes significant crop and pasture losses to prolonged dry spells and says the losses, combined with rising food prices, have reduced access to food in many parts of the country.
Lulume further questioned the effectiveness of government’s irrigation programmes, arguing that farmers would have been better protected from the prolonged dry spell if irrigation facilities had reached small-scale producers.
He called on the Auditor General [Edward Akol] to examine government’s irrigation spending and establish whether the facilities established at district level are actually benefiting local farmers.
The PFF leader also criticized the country’s preparedness for the drought, questioning the reliability of weather forecasts and arguing that government should have acted earlier on warnings about changing weather patterns.
His remarks come just days after government officials called for Uganda to shift from responding to disasters after they occur towards anticipatory action based on forecasts and early warning information.
According to Lulume, the immediate priority is getting food back into the fields before the current crisis deepens, with his party urging government to treat the drought as an emergency rather than another routine agricultural challenge. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
